PHOENIX — Three homicide victims found dead in trailers on a desert property in western Arizona were identified Friday as Washington state residents, including a married couple about to return home.
The victims included 83-year-old Lester Lindsay and 76-year-old Ella Lindsay, a married couple from Wenatchee, the La Paz County Sheriff’s Office said Friday. The third victim was identified as 81-year-old Alice Boyd of Bingen.
Jim Harris, a son-in-law of the Lindsays who lives in Snohomish, said the couple was due back in the area in a week. The family, which includes six children and numerous grandchildren, usually gathers around Mother’s Day. Harris declined to comment further.
A woman who said she was a daughter-in-law of Boyd declined to comment when reached by The Associated Press. The woman didn’t give her name during a brief phone call.
A sheriff’s deputy investigating burglaries found the dead victims late Sunday in two residences on a desert property that a sheriff’s spokesman has described as a getaway spot.
No arrest has been made in the killings, but authorities have called a Phoenix man arrested in a shooting incident early Wednesday morning in a Phoenix suburb an investigative lead in the La Paz County case.
Police say the man, 24-year-old Kitage Lynch, had a car belonging to one of the victims and a gun stolen from the La Paz County location when he was arrested after allegedly shooting at two Glendale police officers investigating a report of a man firing a gun in a field. Neither officer was injured.
Court records don’t list a defense attorney who could comment on the allegations against Lynch, who is jailed on suspicion of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and discharge of a firearm in city limits.
Investigators hadn’t found any link between Lynch and the La Paz County property or anybody else associated with the property, said Sheriff’s Lt. Curt Bagby, spokesman for the La Paz County Sheriff’s Office. “We think it was absolutely 100 percent random,” he said.
While the three victims were from out of state, other people known to stay on the property are from the Phoenix area and use it for weekend escapes, Bagby said.
Investigators don’t yet have results of checks of fingerprints found at the scene, where there were indications of struggles, he said.
Investigators haven’t found anything indicating there was more than one killer, Bagby also said.
Investigators’ preliminary conclusions were that the victims were fatally shot, but they had unspecified injuries as well as gunshot wounds and autopsy results on causes of death weren’t available, Bagby said.
